Rob Huebert: Unpacking Canada’s position on the war in Iran

In the wake of the United States and Israel’s military actions against the Islamic regime in Iran, nations around the world rushed to stake out their positions on the strikes. While some voices condemned the attacks as a violation of international law, Canada issued a statement that drew some measure of surprise across the political spectrum — overhead of it being more supportive of the military actions than many anticipated. A statement released by the Prime Minister’s Office on the morning of February 28 in the hours following the initial attacks, declared that: “The Islamic Republic of Iran is the principal source of instability and terror throughout the Middle East, has one of the world’s worst human rights records, and must never be allowed to obtain or develop nuclear weapons.” It went on to say that: “Canada supports the United States acting to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and to prevent its regime from further threatening international peace and security.” However, in Prime Minister Mark Carney’s more recent comments on March 3, he added that Canada takes this position with “regret” on the grounds that the conflict is “another example of the failure of the international order,” seeming to temper his initial support. So, how should Canadians interpret the words of their prime minister, and how might his statements land south of the border? Is Carney’s initial support a reversal of the worldview he outlined in his high-profile Davos speech earlier this year — or, in fact, a logical extension of it? How long is Canada’s supportive posture likely to hold in the wake of domestic pressures or further global events? Are we already starting to see that shift occur in subsequent remarks from the government? To unpack this, political scientist Rob Huebert joins Inside Policy Talks. Huebert is the director of the University of Calgary’s Centre for Military, Security, and Strategic Studies, and a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute. On the podcast, he tells Ian Campbell, digital editor at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, that he sees Carney’s initial statement on the events in Iran as being aligned with the positions he expressed in Davos.